Approaches to setting weights in composite indicators of sports development: the case of the Football Development Index

Research aim: The authors analyzed the various methods of setting weight values for factors incorporated in multidimensional composite indicators. The focus is drawn to composite indicators of sports development; in particular, the Football Development Index was used for empirical calculations. The authors conducted this research in order to determine the most significant aspects of global football development as well as to increase the robustness of the Football Development Index results. Due to such method, the article helps the researchers to treat the procedure of setting weight values more thoroughly, which is often one of the most disputable methods of sports indicators.

Data and methods: The Football Development Index (FDI) and its components are reviewed as a case study for conducting the calculations. This paper was able to derive new weight values for factors included in the FDI methodology using five approaches: equal weights, budget allocation process, analytical hierarchy process, frequencybased and principal component analysis. The FDI was recalculated using all five approaches and tested for similarities using Pearson correlation coefficients.

Results: The authors were able to calculate five different variations of the FDI using the different weighting methods. The calculations concluded that the derived weight values significantly varied depending on the adopted weighting approaches even though the three indicator groups comprising the overall FDI were given equal importance. Then again, the calculations of the index itself produced practically identical results. The research findings of the paper draw the authors to the conclusion that the selection of a weighting method in constructing composite indicators does not play a significant role in analyzing sensitiveness and validity of final calculations results.

Conclusion: Therefore, it is more advisable to choose simpler weighting methods from a methodological standpoint in order for the general public and policy-makers to be able to interpret the results of such composite indicators of sports development easily. Academic researchers and policy-makers in constructing similar composite indexes of sports development and other socio-economic areas may adopt the analytical and empirical findings of this paper.

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